"Mermaids aren't real," she says, laughter ringing clear like a song of the summer breeze. The strange girl tosses her dark hair back, her eyes a beguiling and inviting green. "Where did you hear of such a thing?"

Deidre shrugs, batting the girl's hands away as she kneels down in the sand, pulling those thick black tresses into a messy braid. "People talk about them often, here. They always have. What is your name?" She locks stray sea shells and ribbons in between the girl's hair, pulling gently and marveling at how beautiful her handiwork looks in the overpowering afternoon sunlight.

The girl smiles, a little quirk of her lips. "My name is of no consequence." A small dimple shows on her left cheek; Deidre wants to rub her thumb over that soft dip of skin, suddenly, just to see how it feels. "Tell me about these mermaids. What fanciful stories!"

Sitting back in the sand, Deidre stretches her long, freckled legs out in the water, sinking a little under it in the cove they're nestled in. Warmth curls into the edges of her toes, into the pockets she makes with her fingers as she draws absently on the wet sand, feeling only the smallest sense of loss when the waves pull over them. She doesn't really know where to begin regaling the hazy, hushed tales of her childhood to this nameless stranger, but the girl prompts her with a raised eyebrow, her expression eager.

"The mermaids," Deidre begins, her voice soft, and then she pauses. Standing, she nods towards a small rock a little while away from the beach, harsh and craggy but picturesque all the same. The girl follows her as she wades over, sitting on the edge of the rock when she reaches it. Deidre hums, floating in the sea, letting her red hair fan out in the water.

Seagulls beat their cloud-white wings overhead, their plaintive cries echoing comfortably in the silence beyond the ocean. "They are beautiful things," Deidre continues, "Beautiful, but terrible. Writers pen entire sonnets in the praise of their beauty, artists create fantasies of these lovely creatures they have never seen, and entire compositions of the most exquisite haunting melodies have been inspired by these mermaids."

"If they inspire so many magnificent works of art, they can't be that terrible, surely," the girl argues, twirling some loose locks around her finger and bringing them to her mouth like a small, reverent kiss. It's a little distracting.

Shaking her head, Deidre lies back, looking up at the sky. The dark-haired girl crawls over in her frayed shorts, leaning over her, a mischievous smile on her face. Deidre smiles back, feeling a familiar heat humming in her blood. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" She reaches out her hand, stroking the back of her knuckles against one pale, sea-soft cheek. "They bewitch and ensnare with their dark eyes, lips curves of red sin against their skin. The mermaids, they sing; their voices are said to be so sweet, so devastating, they bring their victims to their knees. And then, their deaths."

The girl moves in closer, and Deidre can hear her heart beating wildly against her ribcage as lips brush her forehead, unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. "Deaths?" The question's quiet, brimming with curiosity.

"They distract," Deidre says, distracted. "They're not sirens, but their voices are so enchanting, it leaves you breathless. And then they swoop in for the kill."

Murmuring gentle nothings against her hair, the girl nods for Deidre to continue.

She does.

"It's like love, they say, when you find yourself caught between the echoes of mirrors, mirrors without end. You stutter to a stop, you become disoriented by this strange new universe around you, and you're mesmerised. The voice lures you, soothes you, and the mermaids pull you to them, pull you down to the waters where you will forever be imprisoned in their watery abode, your legs chained as they press their lips to your cold skin, your soul dying a little more every day."

Tilting her head to the side, the girl sounds uncertain now, resting her chin against her palms as she looks over at Deidre in the water. "That's a little morbid, even if that was rather poetic."

"You think so?" Deidre swims towards her, hooks her hands invitingly around the girl's neck. The girl's almost lulled by her touch, leaning in to grin against her mouth when she presses her lips to Deidre's, then. "They say I'm a bit of a romantic."

"That you are," the girl breathes, her cheeks flushed, something darker and mysterious in her gaze. "What a story."

Deidre flashes her another smile, glittering eyes calculating as she nips at the girl's lips. "It's all true."

There's a splash then, loud, a cut-off shriek of delight when the seagulls scatter, as two girls disappear under the water, a long iridiscent flipper visible for the briefest of moments. The silence descends once more, broken only by the melodious laughter of a young woman who breaks into song about dreams and love and the fantasies of mermaids long gone.

Posters are plastered all over town for word, any word of the young, dark-haired girl who's gone missing, who was last seen with an enigmatic red-headed girl by the cove.